Chapter 15
Talia
My room is too quiet.
Not the good kind of quiet—the rink-at-midnight quiet, where the hum of the ice plant fills the gaps and someone else is breathing ten feet away.
This is the other kind. Flat. Empty. The kind that makes my thoughts echo.
I sit on my bed, back against the wall, knees drawn up.
The overhead light is off. My lamp is on low, throwing a small circle of yellow over the comforter and leaving the rest of the room in soft shadow.
My dorm key sits on the nightstand, catching the light every time I glance at it—a tiny, metallic metronome keeping time with my pulse.
The scene loops in my head.
Dim hallway. Smell of coffee and stale air. Dad’s office door clicking shut. Declan filling the space like he always does, shoulders broad, hair still damp from the ice.
The extra cup of tea.
“You’re here.”
“I brought coffee.”
The way his eyes locked on mine like the rest of the building stopped existing.
And then—that moment.
Arms on either side of my head, caging me against the cinderblock. Not aggressive. Not careless. Just there. His chest inches from mine. Breath warm on my cheek, threaded with coffee and soap and something that smells like cold air even inside.
The drag of his gaze down to my mouth.
My body leaning toward him before I could think. Before I could talk myself out of it. Before I could remember every reason this is a bad idea.
The barely-there brush of his nose against mine. A breath. A tilt. The world shrinking to one simple, terrifying yes.
We were going to kiss.
We would have. I know it in my bones. If Adrian and Gio hadn’t burst through that locker room door with their bags and their laughter, his mouth would be on mine right now instead of just living in my head.
Clang.
The memory of the door hitting the wall snaps through me. The way everything broke apart.
“Whoa.”
Declan didn’t move at first. He held that position for a full, burning second, eyes still on mine, physically fighting the leash yanking at his neck. Then he straightened slowly, jaw tight, putting space between us that neither of us wanted.
Now, in the dim light of my room, I press my thumb to my lip. Trying to feel the ghost of something that didn’t actually happen.
I wanted it.
That’s the worst part. Or the best.
I wanted his mouth on mine. Wanted to know what it feels like to let that kind of heat touch me and not be afraid. Wanted to see what happens to that careful control if I kissed him first.
You’re the coach’s daughter.
He’s on a short leash.
You’re a complication.
Dad’s warnings stack up with the new ones in my head. The buzz of Declan’s phone in his lap. The way his thumb held the power button down until the screen went black.
I’m on a short leash, he’d said.
He didn’t say who was holding it. He didn’t have to. I saw the tension in his jaw when he ignored that call.
I’m tired of other people’s hands around both our throats.
My phone lies face-down on the nightstand. I check it for the tenth time anyway. Nothing new. Just Clara’s last text from earlier: Study break Sunday? I’ll bring brownies. You bring the trauma.
I huff out a laugh that doesn’t quite land. I start to type.
I almost kissed your favorite goalie outside the locker room.
Delete. My cheeks burn, even alone.
I try again.
You ever want something that definitely qualifies as a bad idea?
Delete.
The truth feels too big to shove into a bubble. Too fragile to send off into the void where it becomes a screenshot, a receipt, a thing that exists outside my control.
I lock the phone and put it back on the nightstand.
Silence presses in again.
I could stay here. Pull the covers over my head and replay the almost-kiss until I fall asleep, heart pounding, hands empty.
Or—
I could do something stupider.
Motion takes over before logic signs off. I swing my legs off the bed and shove my feet into sneakers. My jacket is still hanging on the back of my chair. I shrug into it, fingers fumbling with the zipper.
It’s late. Close to eleven. The air will be cold. Campus will be quiet.
He might not be there.
Except… I know his patterns.
I’ve seen the lights on in the arena at ridiculous hours.
I’ve heard Dad grumble about “Reid taking more ice when he should be sleeping.” I caught sight of him once from the parking lot—just a flash of movement in the crease, alone on the glassy sheet, all that restless energy turned into angles and drills.
When he can’t sleep, he goes to the rink.
When I can’t breathe, I go nowhere.
Tonight, I pick somewhere.
The hallway outside my room is dim, carpet worn in the center from years of stressed-out students pacing between exams and bad decisions. Someone’s microwaving something that smells aggressively like burnt popcorn. A door opens down the hall; laughter spills out, then muffles when it shuts.
The exit door at the end is heavy. My hand hesitates on the bar, waiting for the impact that doesn’t come. I push it open anyway.
Choice. Mine.
Night air bites my cheeks the second I step outside. The sky is a low, solid gray, leaking cold instead of rain. Breath fogs in front of me—little clouds that disappear fast.
Campus is mostly empty. A couple cutting across the quad, heads bent together. Someone zipping past on a skateboard, wheels rattling against concrete. Distant music bleeding out of an off-campus house, bass thumping like a heartbeat with heartburn.
I tug my hood up and shove my hands into my pockets, feet automatically finding the route I know by heart now.
Dorm. Library. Rink.
The closer I get, the more I feel it—the low industrial hum under the quiet. The rink sounds different than the rest of campus at night. Like the building itself is exhaling.
Glass doors are locked for civilians. I’m not a civilian.
The side entrance code isn’t complicated when you grow up watching the person who sets it. Dad uses his old jersey number and the year he met Mom. He hasn’t changed a password since 2005.
I punch it in. Fingers move on muscle memory. The lock clicks. The door groans as I pull it open, sending a draft of colder air against my face.
Inside, hallway lights buzz faintly. Posters line the walls—old Titans teams, trophies, championship banners. The smell hits me immediately: rubber, cold metal, old sweat, cleaning solution. Not pleasant. Familiar.
I pause at the top of the tunnel, where it slopes down toward the ice. The hum is louder here. Sound bounces off the concrete, a steady, low vibration.
Light spills up from the rink itself, soft and bluish. I walk down the tunnel, footsteps echoing. The closer I get, the more my pulse tries to sync with the noise.
I step out at the corner of the rink and look down.
Declan’s there.
Not on the ice. In the players’ box.
He sits on the bench with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped between them. No gear. No mask. Just a black hoodie, gray sweats, bare throat, taped knuckles hanging loosely in the space between his legs.
Hair damp, curling a little at the edges. He looks like he just got off the ice and peeled the armor away, stripping down to the part of him that always feels too big for rooms like my dad’s office.
He hasn’t seen me yet. He stares straight ahead at the empty crease, watching ghosts skate patterns only he can see.
For a second, I think about turning around. Backing out. Letting the door close quietly and pretending I was never here.
He deserves peace. I don’t know what this is—what I’m doing—beyond wanting to be near him when the world is like this.
Then he drags a hand over his face, fingers pressing into his eyes like he’s trying to push something back in.
My choice hardens.
I’m not running.
The door clicks softly shut behind me as I step fully into view.
He goes still. Shoulders lock, then slowly roll back as he straightens. His head turns, just enough to catch me in his peripheral vision. When his eyes find me, something in them shifts—a flare of surprise, then a flicker of something sharper.
“Talia.” Voice low, rough from disuse and cold air. “What are you doing here?”
I swallow. Throat too tight. “Couldn’t sleep.”
His gaze sweeps over my face, down to my hands shoved in my pockets, back up again. Assessing. Checking for cracks.
“You walked here alone?”
“I walk a lot of places alone.”
He doesn’t smile. But some of the tension around his mouth eases.
“Door was locked,” he says.
“No it wasn’t.” I lift a shoulder. “You just have to know the code.”
Eyes narrow slightly. “You shouldn’t know the code.”
“Perks of being the Coach’s daughter,” I say. “He never changes his passwords.”
A corner of his mouth tucks in. “Of course.”
Silence stretches between us, full and heavy. It feels different than my dorm room. Less like pressure, more like space.
“I can go,” I say, even though every part of me screams don't.
He stands.
The movement is fluid. One second he’s hunched on the bench, the next he’s a full wall of height in the players’ box, hands loose at his sides. For all that size, he doesn’t feel big in the way that men in crowded rooms do.
He feels… solid. Like a structure you lean against, not a threat bearing down.
“Don’t,” he says.
Not a command. Soft. It lands in my chest anyway.
He hooks a leg over the low wall of the box and steps out onto the concrete, crossing the few yards between us in long, easy strides. He stops close enough that I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes, not so close that we’re touching.
His gaze flickers over my shoulder, up the tunnel, making sure we’re alone. Then it comes back to me. Steady. Intent.
“You should text someone when you do that,” he says. “Walk around at night.”
“I texted you,” I say before I can stop myself.
The truth hits the air between us and hangs there. It’s not technically a lie—my thumb hovered over his name, the message unsent—but he doesn’t know that.
Something flickers in his eyes. “Did you?”
“I thought about it,” I amend. “Same thing.”